


1916

by Lunik



Category: Thor (2011), War Horse (2011)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunik/pseuds/Lunik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cynthia Nicholls feels that the world in an unfair place to make a mother bury her own son. Loki knows the unfairness of the world goes deeper than this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1916

**Author's Note:**

> This was a norsekink [prompt](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/9985.html?thread=20862721#t20862721) from someone who noticed that the number of comments in the prompt post looked like a year instead of a post count. The prompt was to check which 'year' was generated and write whatever came with that year.
> 
> 1916 meant WW1, which meant War Horse crossover. This wrote itself.

Cynthia Nicholls kept the letter on the parlour table. She knew it was improper, it was indecorous after so long, but he had been her only son. The butler had looked for weeks as though he wanted to say something, but he had learned before too long that it was not something Cynthia was prepared to discuss. Her son had gone to serve his country, had been _brave_ and died in a foreign country cut down by a German gun. Now Cynthia had buried him. And the letter that had crushed her heart lay on the table in the parlour.

The butler had learned not to mention it as the months passed, but then the last draft had come by and now the girl Cynthia had hired to replace him kept making comments as she went about her work. She was not at all the kind of person the Nicholls family would have employed in better days. Not when her son had been a cavalry captain.

She talked. Often, and continuously in the face of Cynthia's frosty silence. Cynthia wished she would stop, but worried that asking her would constitute a conversation. It got so that, when the girl fell silent in mid sentence, Cynthia was almost relieved, despite the shattering sound of one of her favourite teacups colliding with the floor. Then the girl gasped aloud.

"You- How'd you get in here?"

Cynthia spun in her seat, hand flying to her throat. Behind her, in the high backed chair that James had favoured, sat a man. Her soul fled her. It was like her son come back to her.

But no. Her vision swam, but she could see it wasn't her James. "Loki," she breathed.

"He weren't here a second ago, I swear, miss!" the maid blurted. "I don't know how he got in!"

Loki flicked his fingers at her, as imperious as Cynthia remembered him. "You can go," he said. The maid looked uncertain.

"...Ma'am?"

Cynthia felt like she was dying. "He said you can go!" she snapped. The girl scurried out without another word and Cynthia was alone with the man who had left her a son and then _left her_ to lose him. He looked every bit the same as he had when she had seen him last. A young man, and Cynthia in her mourning clothes.

"I never thought to see you again, Mister Lyesmith," she said at length.

Loki didn't patronise her by smiling, or making excuses. "Hello Cynthia."

Now that the initial shock was past and her heart stopped hammering in her chest, Cynthia felt strangely calm. Loki had come like a ghost, like the otherworldly creature he had always seemed, and Cynthia couldn't muster up the passion to be afraid. "You are too late," she said archly.

"No I'm not."

"Your son _died_ ," her voice only broke a little, "a year and more ago. You're too _late_." Loki looked at her steadily, eyes clear and with sympathy hidden far at the back of them. Cynthia shuddered with a sigh. ""Could you have saved him?"

"I imagine so." The one time Cynthia wanted him to lie to her. She closed her eyes. "I warned you, did I not? I told you that the sons of Loki are cursed. I warned you not to open yourself up to this."

"How can you be so heartless? He was your son as well!" His hand was on hers in a moment. She knew if she opened her eyes he would be there on his knees. He wouldn't ask forgiveness with anything but his eyes. "How is it you can swallow this much pain?"

She let him pull her hand close and kiss her wrist. "Practise," he said.


End file.
